The Role of Women in Community Development: Challenges and Opportunities

1. The Role of Women in Community Development: Challenges and Opportunities By Dr. Paulette Meikle Community Development Society Annual Meeting Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Memphis Branch Luncheon-July 28, 2009

2. Community Development Sustainable Communities!Inclusive Communities! Better Communities! have been persistent and pressing goals of men and women in disparate places in the world as they endeavor to improve quality of life for residents. The promise of Community Development can be summed up as follows:

3. A Community Development Model Complex Problem Inclusive New CBOs New policies Participatory Comprehensive and Integrative Social Change Progress Outcome Power PlannedEfforts Process CBOs (required to achieve CD goals ) Implementation Evaluation (qualitative and quantitative) Create benchmarks and indicators Do projects Women should be active participants at all stages of Community Development

4. Why focus on the Role of Women in Community Development • Men and women interpret/ understand and enact planned efforts differently. • Not being aware of, or not focusing on women’s role in community development, can limit community development outcomes. • Women should be viewed as agents of change and advocates of success, rather than traditional target of welfare. • Women focus on quality of life issues. • Women generate unique responses to social injustice. • Tap into women’s unique abilities for building Community Capacity and Community Resiliency. • That is: Women’s collective ability to respond to external and internal stresses and shocks; to create and take advantage of opportunities; and to meet the needs of residents. • Women’s unique ability to positively respond to and adapt to change and efficiently managing change for community wellbeing.

5. Why Focus on the Role of Women in Community Development • I argue that community development is a gendered process - Feminists scholars would argue that Community Development is an uneven process between men and women. • Focus on women – historical lopsided access to decision making, economic resources, and cultural goods etc, yet women in the U.S. are traditionally pivotal in the struggle for social change in their communities (from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to first lady Michelle Obama to Ms Jane and Ms Sue nextdoor). • Feminization of Poverty (continued erosion in the social and economic safety net for women and children). • A solution for the shortage women in policymaking is to promote women in community leadership. • A diverse group, (of inclusive women), often make better decisions than an homogenous group.

6. Why Focus on the Role of Women in Community Development Pervasive Men’s Power: (a) Community Patriarchy (b) Domestic Patriarchy (adapted from Kimmel, 2004) • Community Patriarchy • This refers the institutional arrangements within the community, where there is a prevalence of male in power positions (economy and politics). • Glass Ceiling • Glass Escalator • Inequality • Domestic Patriarchy • This is refers to the emotional and familial arrangements in the community, the ways in which men’s power in the public arena is reproduced in domestic and private lives. Includes male-female relationships, family relationships, and child socialization. • Feminine mystique: A woman thinking of herself only as her children’s mother and her husband’s wife. • Domestic Violence • Displaced homemakers: Women whose primary occupation had been homemaking but who did not find full-time employment after being divorced.

7. Problem

8. Planned Efforts

9. Planned Efforts

10. Process • The interaction of human capital, organizational resources, and social capital existing within a given community that can be leveraged to solve collective problems and improve or maintain a given community. • Creating jobs and enhancing the local tax base. • Female –headed household • Double Jeopardy • Women’s Leadership

11. Process • Building a state of women’s collective identity, the sense of women’s collective belonging, a sense of community solidarity, collective pride in the community as a place. • A sense of achievement and fulfillment among the women of a community. • A community is sustained when women have the collective ability and commitment to shape their destiny to the highest degree possible. • Women’s empowerment, self-esteem, and confidence building. • Social Capital Formation: Personal and organizational networks to facilitate mutually beneficial community organizing and development.

12. Process Women’s Commitment to process • Enthusiasm and commitment are contagious social and psychological phenomena. • Women must be committed to program goals, and share their belief that positive outcomes are possible through effective collective action. • Women are more likely to contribute when they are somehow obligated to a project. • Commitment to process creates a sense of belonging and identity— to achieve CD goals.

13. Process Challenges Female-headed households Job demands Lack of Awareness Lack of time between working and domestic responsibilities. A lack of accessible community organizations Social Exclusion No desire to participate. High cost of transportation

14. Progress (outcome) • Women’s community participation and civic engagement • Diverse leadership • Consistent, tangible progress toward CD goals • A state of collective identity among women and community residents • A sense of collective belonging among women and community residents; • A sense of community solidarity among women and community residents • A collective pride among women and residents in the community. • A sense of collective achievement among women and community residents. • A a collective feeling of fulfillment among residents of the community. • Effective community based organizations and institutions • Efficient use of all community resources • Economic Growth: Jobs for women, and other community residents, entrepreneurship etc.

15. Empirical Study : Women’s Community Engagement: Shelby Mississippi

16. Social Capital: Implications for Women’s Community Engagement. • Extant studies promote the notion that communities/regions with abundant social capital and diverse citizen participation are resilient and strong. • Since the publication of Putnam’s studies, several studies have emerged which have attempted to refine his social capital thesis and its implications for civic engagement. • Most important for this study has been a limited body of literature which focuses on gender differences in social capital between women and men in a variety of milieu.

17. Background • Caiazza and Putnam (2002) found that social capital is significantly related to women’s political participation, where levels of social capital are high, women have higher levels of political participation and representation. • Women fare better where civic engagement is greater, and they fare worse where people are isolated and disconnected from their communities. • Other scholars argue that the gendered dynamics of social capital has received far too little attention. • Our investigation on social capital and women’s civic engagement in Shelby builds on this growing literature and focuses on the on gender differences in participation at the rural community level – in the Mississippi Delta.

18. Shelby’s Social and Economic Profile

19. Research Questions • What are the perceptions and attitudes of women toward civic engagement in a small Mississippi Delta town? • What level of trust exists among women in a small Mississippi Delta town? • How satisfied are women with decision making in their local community? • In what kinds of activities and organizations do women participate? And, what is their level of participation? • How does civic engagement contribute to the empowerment of women and community activeness?

20. Methods • Face to face in-depth interviews with local women in the sample community. • Key Informant interviews/ Oral histories • Focus group with local organizations: the Women United for Shelby group and the Women of Destiny group. Sample size - 107 Sampling Techniques: Purposive Sampling and Snowball sampling

21. Preliminary Findings

22. Predictors and Inhibitors of Community Engagement Among Women • Women are more active in identifying local issues and coming together to solve community problems than men. • Sixty four percent of the respondents said women were more active than men in identifying and solving community problems.

23. Predictors and Inhibitors of Community Engagement Among Women

24. Predictors and Inhibitors of Community Engagement Among Women

25. Predictors and Inhibitors of Community Engagement Among Women

26. A major predictor of community engagement among women in Shelby is having women in leadership positions. • Having a woman in a leadership position motivates women to become engaged within the community. Quotes: • “Because I think there are some very active women in leadership. There is a group in Shelby called the Shelby Women's United that have accomplished a lot of good things.”

27. “Because women are strong leaders in Shelby. Our mayor is a woman.” • “Because I have been hearing a lot of input from women. They are attending the board meeting. There are a lot of women to speak.” • “Women are speaking out more about progress and building up the community to see it grow and prosper.” • “The women are beginning to come out more.” • “I feel like there has been a change in Shelby and more women are stepping up to the plate than men.”

28. Why are Women not Participating? Female-headed households, Job demands, Social Exclusion, Lack of Awareness. • “I work ten hours a day and have two teenage girls and I have a husband I have to take care of.” • “Because the women's club is very nice and they help alot of people, but when they meet I am at work and you must be involved to be a member.” • “If I knew of any, I would go to a meeting and see if I wanted to join.” • “In this community, we really don't have any organizations like that. If we do, you have to be financially stable to belong to groups like that.” • “First of all, if any of these organizations do exist, they are for the most important people. People who are higher up in the community.”

29. Are Women Powerless to Affect Community Decision?

30. Types of Community Engagement in past 12 months

31. Membership in Various Organizations

32. Membership in Different Organizations

33. Women’s Voting Behavior

34. Women’s Source of News and Information

35. Women’s Interest in Local Affairs (in %)

36. Educational Status of Respondents

37. Employment Status of Respondents

38. Improvement in Women’s Life

39. Women & Decisionmaking • How satisfied were women with decision-making in their local community?

40. Women Are Powerless to Affect Community Decisions?

41. Women Powerless to Control Their Own Lives?

42. Women Have Opportunities to Influence Decision-making in the Community?

43. Gender Role Paradox • Seventy percent of women reported that they were heads of their household. • However, in focus group meetings and face-to-face interviews respondents revealed that “most women are the leaders in the household.” • In general women felt that men are not pulling their weight and not meeting family obligations. • The general consensus is that “Men are more capable of governing.” • “Women get out to campaign and help. This is done for all elections. There are three women on the school board. It’s just that women support the men when they run for office.” Another said, “Men are more capable of governing.” • “Men have always run politics and I think they always will.”

44. Gender Role Paradox (Grenada WI) Women are actually the breadwinners in most households, however men (the majority of whom are unwed) are considered head of the household by virtue of being a male and not because of the provision for and protection of the household. One respondent said, “they watch the women work, but are leaders because they’re men.”

45. Gender Role Paradox • One can infer that women in both research areas recognize that there are certain barriers which prevent them from participating civically in their communities, but maintain that they have the power to directly affect the processes which involve their lives. • At the time of the study Shelby, Mississippi had a woman mayor; however, the board of aldermen was all male. • Focus group participants expressed concern because, “the board really makes the decisions.”

46. Trusting Other Women Uslaner (1999), states that when people trust others they are more likely to become active in their communities. In Shelby 58% of respondents said they believed, in general, you can’t be too careful when it comes to trusting others. While 51% said that you can’t be too careful trusting other women and 28% said that you can’t trust politicians.

47. Community Participation-Inhibitors Perception of a lack efficacy Apathy and disillusionment Social Exclusion One respondent stated; “first of all, if these organizations exist, they are not for us, they are for the people who are higher up in society.” “Brain Drain”

48. Conclusions Women in Shelby share a common desire to participate in community development processes. Households are predominantly female headed and many of the same socio-economic barriers exist to stifle their community engagement efforts. Women’s community engagement in Shelby is not nonexistent, but rather is limited. Socio-economic factors, and social capital, or the absence thereof, are contributory factors in the promotion of civic participation among community residents. Women in Shelby are preoccupied with their livelihoods and preservation for their families; it is difficult for them to become civically engaged in a meaningful manner.

49. Conclusions When people trust others they are more likely to become active in their communities. In Shelby there were high levels of distrust among the respondents. This is a determining factor regarding women’s civic participation. If distrust remains among the women Shelby it will hinder effort to reduce gender inequality and enable women to become effectively and actively engaged in obligations and community activeness.

50. Conclusions Empirical data show that it would be challenging for these women to intentionally build social capital. Women of rural Shelby believe that they can impact the decision making processes in their communities. However, the tendency is for ceding or delegating authority to their male counterparts Women should seek an equal balance between personal obligations and their civic involvement. To remain passive in engagement would have major ramifications for the women community development.